


Hazey

by jeannedarc



Series: zaba [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Faerie!AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship goes a lot like this:</p><p>Hakyeon, a lowly member of the Court of Seelie, plays games with all the fae that stand alongside him at parties, casting illusions for the amusement of the royalty. Prince Jaehwan is never amused, despite the fact that his eyes twinkle with said emotion, that his lips turn up at the very corners. When later they meet, Prince Jaehwan forced to go stand among the masses and comfort them, let them know that their place in court is important, just not as important as that of royalty, Hakyeon gives the prince a look that says they should meet later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hazey

The summer evening hangs low in the sky, the stars twinkling from behind sparse clouds. Hakyeon drags his tongue over his own lower lip; it tastes of sweet wine, the kind he only likes when he’s in good company. And he most certainly is tonight, despite said company’s reluctance to admit to being so. “You want to get out of here?” he asks his companion, reaching down and taking his hand, threading their fingers together.

Jaehwan, all full lips and awkward smiles, shakes his head. “It was hard enough getting up here unseen. We’re not going anywhere.”

Tonight is not their first night together, nor is it anywhere near the last, but it is one of the first that involves them keeping their clothes on, that requires a chaste sort of kiss that leaves both of them unsatisfied in ways they can’t explain.

Hakyeon, as always, is a little tipsy, and as a result keeps giggling despite there being nothing to giggle at. “We can always just say you had official prince business or something,” he drawls, leaning in and cupping Jaehwan’s cheek with his free hand, drawing him in for another sweet kiss. “People believe things like that when you’re allowed to play the game.”

Downstairs, a ball is going on -- there’s always a ball going on during the height of the summer months, when the food is good and the wine comes from seemingly nowhere. They had been wearing masks at the start of the party, but now they’ve cast them aside, the ribbons tangled loosely together in a show of togetherness that even they themselves cannot replicate.

“People don’t believe anything I say _because_ I’m allowed to play the game,” Jaehwan points out, leaning forward and pressing his forehead to Hakyeon’s, nuzzling their noses together. “And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re the only person that listens to me.”

Tired of Jaehwan’s emotionally-sensitive routine already, Hakyeon drops his touch from the other fae’s, sets to creating little illusions -- first a tiny snowstorm that melts immediately between his palms, then a series of butterflies that sparkle in the moonlight. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m special because we’re sleeping together,” he says flatly.

Jaehwan looks hurt, though Hakyeon can’t for the life of him imagine why that would be.

“I treat you like you’re special because to me, you are special,” and Jaehwan takes Hakyeon’s busy hand, shattering the charm of illusion that had been fluttering around aimlessly under the light of moonbeams that dance between its wings. “It’s not like I take just anyone into my bed.”

“Rumour tells it differently,” and again Hakyeon is deadpan, his mouth set into a grim line that barely opens to allow him to speak. “What about that little one, the mathematician that smells like a weed--”

“He’s nothing to me, he’s just a friend,” and Jaehwan moves in to press a kiss to the bow of Hakyeon’s upper lip. “It’s only you.”

Hakyeon’s cheeks turn a faint shade of red that can easily be blamed on the wine; he decides that should the opportunity arise he’ll do just that. “Let’s go to bed, then,” he says with a smirk, “show me how special you think I am.”

Jaehwan groans, feinting at frustration, but nods, relenting. “You’ll have to make a distraction to get us past the guards,” he points out. “My parents would be very disappointed to find me back in my quarters this early into a royal event.”

Now it’s Hakyeon’s turn to pretend that it bothers him, but he can’t help himself (though it’s probably got more to do with being drunk than any real irritation with the situation), grins broadly, eyes curving up small. “What else do you keep me around for, if not to get you into places your family would frown upon?” he asks, standing up on wobbly legs and pulling Jaehwan up with him. The two of them hold hands as they fly, none too graceful, from the rooftop of the palace. The silver and gold edges of their wings glint in the moonlight and the air around them envelops them in a warm embrace, kissing their bare skin. Hakyeon, always needing to be the catcher of all eyes, is barely clothed and wrapped in flowers and vines and tight breeches that cling to his shapely hips; Jaehwan has just a slight bit more dignity in the royal garb expected of him -- shirt made of fine silk, no sleeves, and loose breeches with sandals made of various plant life. His head is adorned with the traditional crown of summer blooms, decked in myriad colours, and he looks…

 _Breathtaking,_ Hakyeon thinks as he guides them around the corner of a long, echoing hallway. If anyone knows the palace better than an actual resident of the place, it’s Hakyeon, who has been lurking around in its corners and exploring it in solitude for the last two hundred years, since he’d been born, since he was able to make illusions that made it possible for him to sneak around. Even Jaehwan doesn’t know the secrets this palace hides as well as Hakyeon does; Hakyeon resolves to show him some of the hidden basements, sometime in the near future.

They turn another corner, hand in hand, and then stop short, careful not to be seen. The corner in which they are is dark, hidden by shadow, and from it they can see that the doors to the private bedchambers of the royal family are guarded by two large fae with spears and shields in their hands. Despite the militant nature of their dress, they are still adorned with crowns of lesser flora, and dressed in the celebrational garb of anyone working at the palace this eve. Hakyeon gives them a critical eye, then shoots an illusory charm around the corner, creating a full-fledged ‘nother person, who darts before them, then turns around and runs in the direction of the staircase that leads to the royal treasury.

They chase after the false person, stupidly enough, unable to sense magic when it’s just before them. Hakyeon smirks. “I guess you don’t have to be a genius to be on the royal guard.” Jaehwan laughs, delighted, and they dash forward, careful not to be seen or heard as they push their way into the bedroom wing, closing the heavy doors as quietly as they possibly can behind them. From there it’s only a short, brisk walk into Jaehwan’s bedroom. 

As soon as they’re inside the room’s confines, Hakyeon pushes the prince up against the wall, smirking against the pale curve of his neck as he sinks his teeth against it, then traces over the bite marks left behind with the tip of his tongue. Jaehwan whimpers quietly, biting into his own lower lip to keep from making too much noise, in case the guards are able to hear them from their post.

“Aw,” and Hakyeon’s pouting, lips poised perfectly over the ridge of Jaehwan’s collarbone, “I hate when you have to be quiet.”

“And I hate when you have to fuck me in the middle of my parents’ parties,” Jaehwan snarks right back, all sarcasm, tangling his fingers in Hakyeon’s hair, knocking his crown of white daisies and blood-red dahlias to the floor between their feet. His free hand claws wildly at the vines entangling his lover’s torso, trying to pull them off him; Hakyeon, frowning in disapproval, pulls away.

“You leave those right where they are,” he chides, teasing, knowing deep down how irresistible the urge to tear the sparse garment from his chest must be, “they took forever to figure out how to put on.” Then he drags Jaehwan in the direction of his bed, trampling his own flower crown in the process. When he throws the prince down against the silken bedcovers, he stands over him for a long moment, lingering, watching the younger’s form shift uncomfortably with hungry eyes, enjoying the brief interval of pure tension between them.

Then he dives into bed with him, hands everywhere, exploring every flat plane under that shirt before tearing it from Jaehwan’s body and throwing it aside. His lips map the curves and valleys of Jaehwan’s chest, open, warm, taunting. His hands are at the prince’s hips, pinning him down, keeping him from wriggling out of the other’s controlling grasp, trying to keep him grounded despite the heavenly nature of their current situation. He straddles his prince’s hips, in fact, using his weight to keep the other in place, bent in on himself to keep his mouth in place, just above the thrumming beat of Jaehwan’s heart.

“No marks,” Jaehwan reminds him, and Hakyeon turns up his eyes in a sarcastic sort of glance. “I’m serious, the maid that dresses me always asks questions in the morning if you do.” Disappointed, Hakyeon laps over the edge of a barely-there bruise with the flat of his tongue, blatantly ignoring the disapproving whine that it draws from between his lover’s lips.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he mumbles, falsely obedient, voice muffled by skin. His nails rake at the other’s ribs tenderly, careful not to leave any angry red welts behind -- he gets a little enthusiastic when he’s been drinking, after all, likes to tear at the flesh beneath him with an abandon that is matched by none he’s ever been with. He sits up then, hands spread, fingers splayed over Jaehwan’s ribs, staring down at him with a gaze not different from that of a hunter about to go in for the kill. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not going to play with his target a little first. He does so by pressing his weight downwards, hips slotted just awkward enough against Jaehwan’s that the prince receives no satisfaction, not even the friction of their cocks rubbing together, making him all the more desperate. He whines something about ‘come on’ but Hakyeon again ignores him, shifting so that they are laid directly upon one another, still clothed, the fabric between them creating even more of that tingling sensation that the both of them enjoy so deeply.

“Are you sure I can’t leave any marks on you…?” Hakyeon asks, breathless, eyes narrowed down as he peers into the face of his beloved prince. “Because I would really, really like to, and I’ve been so nice to you so far, Your Highness…”

“I’m sure!” Jaehwan gasps, reaching out and taking Hakyeon’s slim but curving hips between his fingers, blunt nails curving into his skin. “Stop bloody playing with me and fuck me already, you giant brat!”

“As His Highness commands,” and here Hakyeon fakes a little bow, crawling up from his decidedly comfortable spot perched on Jaehwan’s hips and lays beside him, curling around him, his legs tucked under the taller fae’s, curling them up into a tiny ball. He fiddles quickly with the laces at the front of Jaehwan’s breeches, unlacing them with careful fingers, and frees the other’s growing erection from his pants. Hakyeon wraps his hand around Jaehwan’s cock, stroking at him, slow, deliberate, making the prince whine even more than he had been before. His mouth is open, wet against the soft spot behind Jaehwan’s ear, just below the border of his royal crown, which now sits askew atop his head. His hips are pressed against the curve of Jaehwan’s perfect posterior, twitching idly, itching to get inside him. But first things first, as one might say.

He gives Jaehwan’s cock a few lazy pumps, thumb sliding along the slit with every rough movement of his palm. After just a few movements he moves his hand up along the curves of Jaehwan’s chest, holds his hand before the other’s mouth, nudges him with his nose at the side of his neck. Jaehwan licks a slow stripe along Hakyeon’s palm, one that makes the elder shiver with pleasurable anticipation, and drops his hand to the other’s cock once more, stroking at him more urgently. 

“I think I-- I said fuck me,” Jaehwan stammers out, breath hitching in his chest, arm slung backwards, hand groping blindly until he reaches the slope of Hakyeon’s ass, gripping it tight, encouraging. “This isn’t what I had in mind.”

“Be patient, little prince,” Hakyeon murmurs, nipping at the side of Jaehwan’s neck and pumping him that much more eagerly, ‘til he ruts up into Hakyeon’s hand, ‘til a stream of unintelligible words and none-too-princely swears pours forth from between his lips. “I promised you I’d be good to you tonight, didn’t I?” And he didn’t, has never been so kind in his entire life as to make promises like those, but it sounds enough like something he would say that Jaehwan agrees, winching his eyes shut and losing himself in the sheer pleasure of being touched, of having someone he cares for get him off.

In truth, it’s everything Hakyeon wants -- to fuck Jaehwan until he’s a mess of a man, wings curled in on themselves, a quick dribble of golden summer blood dripping from his bottom lip from biting into it so hard, one that Hakyeon can clean up with the daring tip of his own tongue. He wonders for an idle moment if Jaehwan’s blood would taste sweeter, either because Hakyeon actually likes him or because royal blood is said to have more power than the rest. In any case, he feels his cock growing harder between his own legs at the thought of leaving Jaehwan wrecked completely, and he’s sure the other can feel it as well, because he grinds back against the ridge forming in Hakyeon’s breeches, gasping for breath. 

_Fuck him,_ something in Hakyeon’s mind chants, _fuck him, fuck him, **fuck** him,_ and whether it’s a good connotation or a bad one doesn’t really matter at this point -- he’s got an objective on his mind. Jaehwan turns just enough to free Hakyeon’s cock from his own ultra-tight pants, and Hakyeon pants a breath of relief, of thanks.

He twists the fingers of his free hand harshly in Jaehwan’s hair, turning the younger’s head to kiss him, sharp, teeth sinking into the pad of his lower lip, intent on drawing the blood that’s got him so curious. He tugs hard, and Jaehwan babbles again. Hakyeon knows the rules, knows that he’s going to have to heal his prince before they retire for the night, but he doesn’t mind all that much. With his other hand he works the breeches entrapping Jaehwan’s legs and his pert ass down around the younger’s knees, the hem of them catching in the twinings of his sandals. Getting him undressed completely doesn’t matter, Hakyeon decides, filled with an urgency he can’t explain given the fact that they’re not in any rush to get out of here (the way they normally are). 

Jaehwan is already somewhat prepped, thanks to an incomplete tryst in the gardens earlier that afternoon, and Hakyeon is pleased to discover this fact, that he can easily slide a finger inside him and crook it gently. Jaehwan whimpers pathetically at the intrusion, but welcomes it nonetheless, lower back arching. Spurred on by the noises he draws from his lover’s lips, Hakyeon adds another finger, scissors them shallowly inside Jaehwan, only to draw them out again, satisfied with his little experiments.

Then without much warning, he wraps his arm around Jaehwan’s head, wrist pressed to his mouth as he works his other hand over his cock, lubing up with a magical substance he forces from his palm. Then he slowly slides his erection into Jaehwan, and Jaehwan bites into the tender flesh of Hakyeon’s forearm to keep from screaming out, a mixture of pain and pleasure that isn’t altogether unenjoyable. Hakyeon tightens the wrap of his legs underneath the prince’s, pulls him closer with the little leverage he has considering the younger’s teeth are bared into him. Then he starts to move, quick, shallow, the bones of his hips just barely rapping against the curve of Jaehwan’s ass. 

He moves deeper, further with every thrust, and Jaehwan ruts himself back against the throbbing cock inside him until Hakyeon’s hips are pressed taut against him. He reaches back, planting a palm at the small of Hakyeon’s back, furthering the burying of Hakyeon’s of the cock inside him, forcing them even closer together. His other hand goes to his cock, stroking himself in rhythm with the smooth movements of himself being fucked. Hakyeon can tell by the way the tight muscle of Jaehwan’s ass tightens around him that the younger is close to his release, and can tell by the mild burn in the base of his gut that he’s not that far from an orgasm, himself.

So he fucks them both to completion, his hand going down to wrap around Jaehwan’s fingers, both of them making a joint effort to jerk him off until he spills over both their hands.

Feeling empty and complete at the same time, Hakyeon pulls Jaehwan into him, face buried in the crook of his neck.

He thinks Jaehwan says ‘I love you’ as they fall asleep like that, Hakyeon not even bothering to pull out, content to rest this way, his lover wrapped up in his arms. He thinks, but he isn’t sure, and he’s just drunk enough right now, off the sweet summer wine of the ball, off the feeling of releasing inside someone he truly cares for, to know that he won’t question it in the morning.

* * *

Their relationship goes a lot like this:

Hakyeon, a lowly member of the Court of Seelie, plays games with all the fae that stand alongside him at parties, casting illusions for the amusement of the royalty. Prince Jaehwan is never amused, despite the fact that his eyes twinkle with said emotion, that his lips turn up at the very corners. When later they meet, Prince Jaehwan forced to go stand among the masses and comfort them, let them know that their place in court is important, just not as important as that of royalty, Hakyeon gives the prince a look that says they should meet later.

Jaehwan always disputes this in quiet, blanketed shadows of corners of throne rooms, unable to bring his attentions and affections to light, not truly. “We can’t, not today, I have to meet with some of the higher members of Court, get their opinions on what we should do for our next grand feast.”

Hakyeon almost always sighs, rolls his eyes, tilting his head so that his flower crown (beautiful in its own right but never quite as grandiose as his prince’s) sits askance atop his head. “You have a grand feast to attend to every week in the summer,” he points out in a none-too-subtle whine. “Besides, I happen to have a couple bottles of the absolute finest summer wine and your favourite sort of attentions at the ready, just for you.” A wicked smirk curls the corner of his mouth, and Jaehwan is weak to Hakyeon’s confidence, despite having plenty of his own.

“Meet me in the garden when the sun starts sinking in the sky,” he always says, though whether or not he will actually attend this appointment is dubious at best. It’s about a fifty-fifty gamble, and more times than he cares to count Hakyeon is left waiting.

He always shows up, though, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who he’s promised to show off his amusements to that early evening -- he always begs off his own appointments in the hopes that Jaehwan will do the same for him.

If not, he drinks both bottles of wine himself, ends up passing out amongst the flowers. It would hurt his reputation if he had one as more than just a troublemaker to begin with, but since he is who he is, he more often than not gets away with it.

Some nights, after the grand feasts, after the long dances complete with music that seems to last for days on end, Hakyeon and Jaehwan end up in one of their beds together, fucking like woodland creatures, unable to keep their hands off one another. This is often how their garden affairs end, as well, with them wrapped in each other’s arms, sharing kisses, making love beneath the arbors wound with flowers and vines and various other trappings that only come with the summer’s warm breath. 

Jaehwan is a romantic, while Hakyeon couldn’t be farther from it, despite his leanings towards flirting with every good-looking fae that comes to court for some reason or another. It almost got him into trouble once, when he ended up making his lascivious eyes at a neutral fae who had come in for, of all things, a granting of recognition for marriage out in the Neutral Forest. The king had given it to him, but Hakyeon had nearly charmed this fae away from his husband out there in the wastes, and it could have been a horrible disaster had Jaehwan not stepped in with a joke about how Hakyeon is merely the least pleasing of all their alluring court allies.

Later on that evening, Jaehwan had paid for his little quip, but they both ended up quite satisfied with the result. 

“You can’t just go gallivanting about with every good-looking faerie man you see,” said Jaehwan, lower lip quivering, all his previous confidence in their relationship shot to the depths below. “For one, it will get me into trouble. You know I’m directly responsible for your level of standing.”

“Ah, yes, you know I hate to get you into trouble,” and Hakyeon is all devilish delight, wrapping his arms possessively around the prince’s bare chest and pulling him into an embrace he cannot argue with. “Especially with me. What harm could it have done?”

Jaehwan has a look on his face that makes Hakyeon think he wants to say something, but instead they remain in silence. 

It’s not as if Hakyeon is given no reason to be jealous, either -- Jaehwan, being royalty and therefore subject to his parents’ whims no matter how arbitrary, is at some point announced to be betrothed to some high-ranking girl, member of the more respected tiers of court. She is always at the summer dances, putting on her most coquettish faces from behind the traditional mask worn at one of these formal events. Her lips are beautiful, her eyes shine like stars behind her mask, and she is astronomically pretty, with astrids woven into her numerous, pinned-up braids.

Hakyeon finds himself envious of her more than once, especially when she gets to take the dance floor with His Highness, and the two of them swing round and round in a gleeful dance that involves intricate footwork and much hand-holding. Hakyeon is a far better dancer than she, of course, he being one of the best in the court of Seelie, but they are still a sight to behold -- so says the woman standing beside Hakyeon, with a brilliant smile on her face.

Hakyeon must keep himself from vomiting, though whether it’s because of the wine roiling in his belly or the notion that someone, anyone could look better with Jaehwan than he, he cannot discern.

* * *

The morning sun peeks in through the crack between the light and airy drapes, and the entire room is filled with pastel-coloured light, greens and blues and somewheres in-between. Hakyeon opens one eye to admire the way that light paints his lover’s skin, the way Jaehwan looks peaceful and worriless when he’s asleep. He reaches out with feather-light fingers, tousles the younger’s hair, and leans in to press a kiss to the line of his brow.

The situation is a sweet one, a tender one, one that someone else might consider romantic, and therefore lower their guard. But Hakyeon is a fae of a lower status, and therefore he is always on his guard. He’s jumping from Jaehwan’s bed completely nude and kicking his clothes under the edge of the bed as soon as he hears the approaching footsteps, knows that someone must have a very important appointment to keep with his prince. Before he realises it Hakyeon is shoving himself into the armoire, closing the doors just enough so that he can peer out from between them, watch the scene play out right before his eyes.

A sunbeam dances in his eye; he blinks it away and trains his gaze on Jaehwan’s sleeping, nude form.

It’s just then that Jaehwan’s mother, the Queen, bursts into his bedroom. “Jaehwan, darling, you know it’s nearly noon and you haven’t bothered to come downstairs for breakfast? Your father and I were wondering if we were going to be blessed enough to see your face this morning.”

Oops. Hakyeon is going to pay for this later. Not that he particularly minds, so long as he got to spend five more minutes of the night tracing circle patterns into the broad expanse of Jaehwan’s shoulderblades. 

The Queen’s disapproval, however, is not something that Hakyeon envies the prince, who now lifts his sleepy head, a soft (and decidedly adorable) trail of spittle drooping from the corner of his mouth. “Hu-- ah, um, mother.” He moves to cover his nakedness, wrap himself up in a blanket.

“Please save your act for someone who believes it,” the Queen says with a certain amount of disdain. “I happen to have eyes that told me you brought someone home last night. I won’t ask who it is; it’s for your father to decide, should I tell him, what happens to those with whom you keep company. In the meantime,” and here she turns directly toward the wardrobe in which Hakyeon is hiding, straightens the doors and closes them with a loud _thunk_. Hakyeon’s vision of the scene before him is obscured, a fact for which he is both disappointed and terrified, hoping the Queen hadn’t seen him during her brief interlude. Jaehwan tries to protest his mother’s pestering, though it is to no avail, as she continues on: “Please do try to be at least be a little graceful in your affairs. And make it to breakfast on time, darling.”

For a quiet moment, Hakyeon wonders what it was like to be raised by such a shrew of a woman, but then he hears the soft smack of the Queen pressing a kiss to her son’s forehead. Everyone has a kind side, he supposes.

When the Queen departs, still in a bit of a huff, Hakyeon climbs from his spot at the bottom of the closet. Jaehwan is paler than usual, turned a ghostly shade of white despite the usual sheen of sun that kisses his skin. “We almost got caught,” he says slowly, and it’s as if the words are coming to him one by one, the sleep that had taken him not so long ago impacting his thoughts and therefore his speech. “My mother almost caught us. She might as well have caught us, with what she said.”

Hakyeon grins, more the fool for it. “But we didn’t get caught. No one knows about us.”

“Not us in the specific, but I think us in the abstract is enough to get us caught.” Jaehwan sits up, rests his lower back against the high pile of pillows behind him, one hand at his forehead. “I really don’t want to see you carted off or...worse.” He swallows hard at the mention of worse, looking away.

Ever impatient with Jaehwan’s sensitivity, Hakyeon reaches out, turns his lover’s face with the tips of his fingers against the other’s cheek. “There is no worse than me without you,” he insists, crawling into bed on top of him, curled up in his lap.

They kiss, long, slow, passionate, and Jaehwan’s fears seem to ease the longer their lips remain locked. But there’s still that unspoken ‘worse’ between them, the one that neither of them want to realise, and that scares the both of them more than anything.

* * *

The nights they spend in Hakyeon’s bed are more affectionate than sexual, more intimate than sensual, usually with long gazes into one another’s eyes, slow lovemaking with fingers intertwined, deep kisses and marks that will fade by the time dawn rises on his tiny apartment, high above the palace. They don’t drink those nights, despite Hakyeon’s effort to the contrary -- Jaehwan always cites something about wanting to remember these nights.

Hakyeon doesn’t know just how in love Jaehwan is, or for that matter how in love he himself is, only that he likes these nights best of all, likes curling into Jaehwan as they fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, exhausted and utterly spent from the sex, from the hand-holding, from the stares into the depths of one another’s souls as they fuck to completion, from everything. 

He knows that when he wakes up and finds his prince still sleeping beside him peacefully, he feels a flutter in his heart that cannot be accounted for by anything but something like love. Still he denies it, to his prince but more so to himself, denies the jealousy he feels when Jaehwan has to attend to other members of court, when he has to dance with other people, when he has to share toasts with his family or potentially marry some other girl or spend time with anyone else, really. He wants all of Jaehwan’s smiles, his laughs, his silly noises when he wakes up in the morning, his sleepy greetings and kisses and hugs. He wishes there were any sort of legitimacy to their relationship, that he could say it’s going somewhere other than, inevitably, down.

Still, the sneaking around does wonders for their bedroom life, as it’s something of a thrill to them both, the anticipation of getting caught. Some nights when he’s lying in bed alone, parted from his love by one circumstance or another, he wonders when that excitement will wear off, and hopes it isn’t anytime soon.

* * *

Jaehwan is restless for reasons unknown during one of their typical garden meetings. He’s told seven bad jokes in the short span of this visit, none of which have gone over. Hakyeon is watching him with a certain nervousness, sitting directly adjacent to him on a worn stone bench under the arbor trellises, swelling with vine that bloom blue and white flowers that are so thick they blot out the heavy, stifling rays of the sun. “What’s wrong?” he asks, tentative and a little afraid, but he receives no answer in return, instead just earning himself a blank look.

The silence between them is a tense one, and every time Hakyeon tries to touch his beloved prince he is shaken off, rebuffed in a way that he finds callous, even cold, something he would never have come to expect from his summertime lover, given the very nature of his being. “Please tell me,” Hakyeon implores yet again, not sure as to why he’s so curious; for all he knows this spells a sort of doom for their relationship, the knowledge of which has always been keenly apprehensive but never quite heeded. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“But you won’t say you love me,” Jaehwan answers shortly, and Hakyeon is taken aback. Does he love Jaehwan? Of course he does, but it’s safer not to say so, safer to keep his heart sheltered from any emotions that might compromise the eventual end of their liaison. “Meanwhile, I’m putting everything on the line just to spend a night in your bed here and there.”

Now Hakyeon is just plain angered, clenches his fists at his sides, takes a couple inches between them to keep from reacting viscerally to these words. “I’m risking my neck to make you happy, literally risking my neck -- you know as well as I do that I could die for this, don’t make that face -- and you’re throwing a fit over a couple words?”

“They’re not just a couple words to me,” Jaehwan mumbles, quiet, thoughtful, and Hakyeon has to fight from rolling his eyes, knowing that to do so would surely spell death for their love. “They’re very important, as a matter of fact. You know how my family is, how my father wants to marry me off as soon as possible, and yet you can’t even be bothered to let me know that this is worth fighting for, to you?”

“What’s there to fight for?” Hakyeon demands, moving further away, the space between them breaking his heart in an ineffable sort of way. “There’s no future between us. There never was.” Here Hakyeon practically spits out his words, which are laced with venom and could easily corrode the center of anyone’s still-beating heart. “This is just something we’ve done for fun, to pass the time, until you have to get married to some girl and I have to go work at some other part of court, amusing even simpler people with more complicated tricks.”

“For fun?” Jaehwan asks, and there’s a crack in his voice that lets Hakyeon know he’s said the wrong thing. “I’m the fucking _prince_ , Hakyeon. I could do anything I wanted, so long as we were discreet about it, and fought for us when the time came. But...if that’s how you really feel about us, then maybe I should just go.” He stalks off without another word, and Hakyeon swears he sees his shoulders shake with sobs.

Hakyeon doesn’t try to stop him from going, instead waits until he has disappeared, a tiny speck at the end of rows and rows of hand-made trellises, and cries quietly into his own hands.

* * *

The star-crossed lovers don’t see each other for several weeks after their fight on that sticky summer day, and their relationship is not quite the same as a result of missing one another. For one, Jaehwan stops attending Hakyeon’s illusion shows, put on for the people, and his presence is sorely missed not only by Hakyeon, whose heart breaks every time he realises his prince is not present, but by the crowds as well. They take comfort in knowing that their royalty is one of the people among them, delighting in the simple things just as well as playing complex political games.

Hakyeon remains grief-stricken the longer he goes without seeing the prince, who rarely makes more than a formal appearance at the weekly feasts anymore. He does his dance with his betrothed, says hello to the higher-ups, but other than that is scarce. He must be plotting something, Hakyeon knows, some way to get out of his engagement, or some end-of-summer extravaganza that will leave them all stunned. Very few members of the court know this, but the Queen wouldn’t be able to plan her precious parties without the help of her eldest son by her side. He’s the one that negotiates all the finer details, smoothes over things in the kitchen with his charming smile, organises musical acts, and generally takes care of things behind the scenes so that his mother can relax.

He’s always told Hakyeon it’s his favourite part of being royalty. That, and getting a private tutor for all things magical. Truth be told, Jaehwan is one of the most powerful members of the Seelie Court. 

When Hakyeon remembers this, his heart gets sick all over again, and he has to retire to bed with a couple of bottles of wine and a serving boy or two in order to keep his mind off things.

He tries to move on, he really does, flirts with every single gorgeous man he comes across, as well as some of the girls, but no one really strikes his fancy quite the way Jaehwan had done once upon a time. No one captures his heart. No one…

No one makes him _feel_ anything.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t take a distinct… _liking_ to certain members of court. He takes more than one of them to bed, causes a few scandals, mainly trying to catch the prince’s attention by way of rumour. He never really knows as it’s happening if it’s going to work, but he hopes for the best, hopes that fucking the right low-level royalty will cause his beloved prince to come back to him. 

At court functions, Hakyeon catches himself staring more than once, has to have his attention forcibly taken away from Jaehwan’s face by another partygoer. “You look ill, dear,” is usually the comment made, and perhaps he does, but it’s just as likely because he’s been drinking for days and can’t tell which way he’s about to fly.

He takes the dance floor with a relative stranger, someone whose face he knows but whose name he does not; when the dance ends he clings to the man’s arm, wraps himself around the fae coyly, trying his best to look cute even though he knows he’s probably a mess of a faerie himself. Feeling eyes on him, he turns to glance over his shoulder; Jaehwan is watching him from his place at the front of the room, adjacent to his mother’s throne.

Hakyeon smirks, kisses this stranger full on the mouth, to many titters from courtly ladies who find it quite entertaining to watch two men kiss.

The ball ends in the wee hours of the morning, and Hakyeon ends up in a stranger’s bed, grunting as he is filled up from behind. He imagines that it is Jaehwan pushing into him, and when he climbs out the window, spent and sore, his wings barely carry his heavy body to his treetop apartment.

He won’t be doing it again anytime soon, but it was nice to forget, if only for a little while.

* * *

Hakyeon is traipsing the gardens, looking for flowers, for another fae to keep him company, for something with which to distract himself, when he stumbles upon the prince. It’s not as if he had been searching for Jaehwan, but when he passes each and every one of their clandestine spots for meeting, he hopes that he’ll run into his beloved here or there or somewhere. It is fortuitous, he thinks, that he does.

“Hakyeon,” Jaehwan says, rising from his seat on a low stone bench, surrounded by flowers of yellow and white and pink that set off his skin nicely. He is clothed in a sash and loose breeches and nothing else, and he looks very...regal, Hakyeon thinks, taking a step back, not wanting to face the reality of meeting up with his former lover in a lovely place such as this.

He knows he’ll have to apologise at this juncture, and doesn’t want to, doesn’t feel he’s done anything wrong other than drive his beloved away, something that was going to happen anyway. “It’s good to see you,” he lies, barely resisting the urge to run away, bury himself in some other lover and forget that he’s seen his prince today. “How have you been?”

“Missing you,” Jaehwan says shyly, digging his toes into the dirt, and Hakyeon watches him, fascinated by his minute movements all over again. “Wondering why you’re sleeping with everyone you possibly can. Not that I’m angry at you -- I can’t be.”

“You’re right, you can’t be,” Hakyeon says stoutly, pursing his lips and resting his hands on his well-cut hips. “You’re the one that left me, that day. I stayed right here.”

“I know,” and here Jaehwan’s a little pouty, but there’s regret in his eyes, and Hakyeon finds it difficult to continue being angry with him. “I know, I shouldn’t have done that. You didn’t deserve it. But...I don’t know. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you every night since we stopped talking, and I’ve never been so lonely as I am without you.”

Hakyeon hums quietly at this, trying not to voice his agreement even though he truly wants to, wants to tell Jaehwan that no matter how many nights he spends with other people he’s always thinking of how much he adores his prince, would rather curl up beside him any night than go to bed thoroughly fucked by someone he doesn’t care for in the slightest. After carefully considering his options, he goes with the one he finds will be the least damaging: “I’ve missed you.” Simple, eloquent, none too overstated, the way he normally would.

Truthfully, he wants to burst into tears and fall into Jaehwan’s arms, but the time for that has long since passed.

Instead he draws close to the prince, grabs him by the hem of that sash, tugs him into a kiss, and not one of the tender and romantic variety either. He traces the tip of his tongue along the bow of the other’s upper lip when he pulls away. “You’re not allowed to leave me like that again, alright?”

And Jaehwan, smiling, kisses him again, softer this time, somehow more and less demanding at the same time.

Hakyeon is so happy, he takes Jaehwan back to his apartment, and they make the sweet, slow, romantic love they’ve become so accustomed to in their time together, whenever they come back to this place. 

They stay there for two days, though the whole time Hakyeon pushes Jaehwan to go forth and satisfy the needs of his family. He refuses adamantly, saying that he’d much rather spend time with someone he loves than someone who raised him, and silences all of Hakyeon’s protests to the contrary with a smattering of slow, sloppy kisses that leave them both in a pile of giggles. They only get out of bed to eat when they absolutely have to, to hydrate if they need to, to take care of business, but otherwise they hold one another in tight, warm embraces, gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes.

He should know it spells their doom, the fact that their time together is uninterrupted. Maybe some part of Hakyeon does know that this is trouble. But he pushes it aside every time, burying his lips into the tender side of Jaehwan’s neck.

The storming of his apartment comes after a third morning passes wrapped in each other’s arms -- the royal guards of the court come barging in his front door, through the hall to his bedroom, armed and dangerous, ready to take the prince back by force if they have to.

They place Hakyeon under arrest for kidnapping, even though Jaehwan’s screaming, ordering them not to. “It’s not kidnapping,” he insists, tears streaming down his face, “I want to be here, did my mother send you? My father? They can’t do this, you can’t do this--”

Everything except his beloved princes’ voice voice passes in a blur; later Hakyeon won’t even be able to remember the magic binding his wrists behind his back, the way the guards grab him by the elbow and practically dislocate his shoulder in the process. Maybe he tries to escape, fly away through the window, but maybe he doesn’t, knowing that this is the punishment he deserves for having committed a crime so heinous as loving the prince of the Court of Seelie.

* * *

He sits in the prison located beneath the palace for what feels like years, but must only be days. He doesn’t eat, barely drinks, doesn’t bother to look out through the bars and beg for his freedom the way some of his fellow prisoners do. Mostly he just lays on the floor of his cell, his wings curled up beneath him, staring blankly up at the ceiling, wondering when this pain in his heart is going to go away.

It doesn’t, but he still hopes.

Jaehwan visits him once, and they don’t really say anything to one another, mainly because Jaehwan is constantly glancing over his shoulder, making sure he hasn’t been followed. Hakyeon takes a long time just gazing up and down the contours of Jaehwan’s face, memorising them, learning everything he had forgotten during the time of their separation. He wants to learn other things -- the sound of Jaehwan’s laugh, the curl of his lips when Hakyeon tells a joke gone terribly wrong, the way it feels to be wrapped up in his prince’s arms -- but they just don’t have enough time.

Near the end of the visit, Jaehwan reaches through the iron bars, nevermind the burns it forms on his skin, and takes Hakyeon by the hand. “I love you, Hakyeon. I’ll never stop loving you. And I don’t care what I have to do in order to get you out of here -- I’ll do it. I won’t let you die.”

It sounds like a promise, but at this point Hakyeon is happy enough with just the words, doesn’t need anything to come of them.

The last thing he memorises is the feel of Jaehwan’s hand in his, those smooth fingers against his own, the kiss of their palms.

He thinks he might die without Jaehwan, anyway.

As soon as the heavy wooden door closes behind Jaehwan, marking his exit from this dungeon, Hakyeon bursts into tears, buries his face in his hand, moans out in a ghostly voice:

“I love you, too.”

He says it a million times if he does once. It doesn’t change anything.

* * *

His sentence is exile, passed down by the king himself at an emergency session of court. “And you’re fortunate,” spits the king, who glances over his shoulder at his eldest son, “that I don’t behead you in front of every lord and lady here, just for the sake of it. Kidnapping my son like that, who do you think you are, you classless jester of a man?”

The queen watches on with grim eyes, wringing a handkerchief between her fingers anxiously; she looks as if she wants to say something, but doesn’t, instead lets the proceedings go on. Jaehwan is crying again, but silently, so as to not attract attention to himself.

He mumbles something without being heard; Hakyeon doesn’t even listen to the king, would rather figure out what his lover is saying. It will be, after all, the very last thing Jaehwan ever says in his presence, and it’s probably important, no matter what it actually is.

His heart aches, Hakyeon’s does, and he clutches his chest to make sure it still beats, even as the guards escort him from the court, from the grounds outside the palace, from the entire domain of Seelie. They walk for days without stopping, despite the unbearable heat that makes Hakyeon’s wings curl in the corners, despite a squall complete with lightning that knocks down a tree directly in their path, despite the creatures that attack them as they make their way through bramble patches and endlessly thick thickets.

After a long trudge through a swamp, Hakyeon is bitten, and exhausted, and swears he can’t take another step.

The guards drop him in the middle of a clearing, decide their job is done, and take off on wingback, apparently intent on going back to the place where everything is safe for them.

There is nothing here, Hakyeon notes as he stares around, inspecting his surroundings. It’s good, he thinks, that this place is such a blank canvas --

it matches the way his heart feels, without his prince.


End file.
